If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Welcome to the new PC Perspective forums! Have a look around and tell us what you think in our feedback forum. If you notice any bugs or style issues, please report them in this thread.

Hard Drive problem, could be anything.

when my GPU kicks in, the hard drive (I've tried two, not that failing) shuts down and spins back up and down again causing some nasty noise and windows to become unresponsive in some of these "surges" but everything is still posting and my games don't shut down. 530 watt raidmax hybrid seems sufficient for a stock clocked i5 2500k and a GTX 260. Something I'm missing? Only seems to be happening in game when the GPU starts up.

Re: Hard Drive problem, could be anything.

PS has 2 12 volt rails, maybe you have too much on one rail ? It's modular but I can't see on their site how the outputs are set up. Move the cables/connections around to balance the power or move the hard drives off the same powerline as the gpu ?

Re: Hard Drive problem, could be anything.

5v is out of spec ( > 5% below optimum )
Whether that could be the problem ....hard to tell
Really need to check with multimeter to see exactly what you have on the 5v and 12v and perhaps monitor it during the "surge".

Re: Hard Drive problem, could be anything.

11.75V and 4.59V on the 12 and 5v rail seems a bit "weak" when you look at the bios for voltage you do not have a big load on the psu and I'm quite sure those numbers would drop some more when under load. (like when the video card needs extra power)
Raidmax aren't known for quality psu either...
Whats the amperage like on the 5 and 12v line ? (should see this on a sticker on the psu)

Re: Hard Drive problem, could be anything.

I figured out the issue. Took an old 450 PSU out to see what was up. Using it to power my hard drives and the Raidmax for the rest of the system, I found that even with just the GPU running on the rail it would totally cut out still. The problem was that the GPU drew more then the rail could take. The motherboard gets one rail and the molex and GPU are on another.

Weird they give you two PCI-E, and it's SLI ready, but it can't even power one card. Not sure if I'd want to spend my money on a Raidmax PSU again. They market it way more powerful then it seems to be. Ordered a CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX650 that I seen on the HW leader boards that fitted my specs. For now, this dual PSU set up seem to temporarily work until that gets here. Thanks much for the help!